Are multivitamins good for working shifts?
Vitamin supplements are best avoided. In the UK at least deficiencies are rare and there is neither need nor therapeutic advantage in taking supplements. Recently there has been increasing concerns about what is effectively overdosing on synthetic vitamins. The fat soluble vitamins are the most potentially toxic, A to the eye, D to the kidney K to the blood clotting mechanism and E appears to increase all cause mortality. The most recent, and one of the most worrying papers concerns women taking multivitamins. There appears to be an associated 19% increase in the risk of breast cancer in women on multivitamin tablets, though further investigation is required to confirm that the risk is causal.
